Thendara House (11 page)

Jaelle put a fork into her food before replying. She had never known a woman who was neither the property of some man, nor yet a Renunciate. At last she said, “If you want to be my friend, you can start by not calling me
Mrs. Haldane
. Peter and I are not married
di catenas
and the Renunciate’s Oath forbids that I shall wear any man’s name - though I can’t seem to make Records understand that.”

“I’ll try and have it fixed,” Cholayna said, and Jaelle could see the woman’s lively brown eyes absorbing the information. “What should I call you, then?”

“I am Jaelle n’ha Melora. Should we truly come to be friends, my sisters in the Guild House call me
Shaya
.”

“Jaelle, then, for the moment,” said Cholayna, and Jaelle noted with appreciation that she did not hurry to use the intimate name. “I was Magda’s friend as well as her teacher, I think. And there is a good deal you can do for us here; I am sure you know that we have agreed to train a group of young women in Medic; perhaps you can make it easier for them among us. You are the first, you know.”

Jaelle smiled. “But I am not, of course. Two of my Guild sisters worked on the Spaceport when you were building it.”

Cholayna said, surprised, “Our employment rolls show no sign of Darkovan women employed - ‘

Jaelle laughed. “They were both
emmasca
- neutered; you probably thought them men, and of course they would have taken men’s names. They wished to see what your people were like, who had come from beyond the stars,” Jaelle said. She forbore to add that what they had told, in the Guild House, had been the subject of many jokes, some vulgar.

Cholayna laughed softly. “I should have known that while we were studying you, you would be studying us in return. I will not ask you what you thought of us. Neither of us knows the other well enough for that, not yet.”

Jaelle was pleasantly surprised. This was truly the first Empire subject she had met who did not jump to unjustified conclusions about Darkovan culture. Perhaps Cholayna was the first truly educated Terran she had met, except for Magda, who was more Darkovan than Terran.

“Are you sure you have had enough to eat? More coffee? You are sure?” Cholayna asked, and at Jaelle’s refusal, shoved the dishes into the disposal unit, and took up a cassette from her desk. Jaelle recognized her own writing on the label; it was the report she had made up about Peter’s ransom and their winter at Ardais. One with Peter’s familiar label was beside it.

“I see from this,” she said, “that you were born in the Dry Towns, and lived there until you were almost twelve years old.”

Jaelle wondered suddenly if the lunch she had eaten had contained something poisonous to her; her stomach heaved, reminding her that she had intended to go and see the Medic. She said curtly, “I left Shainsa when I was twelve and have never returned. I know very little of the Dry Towns: I have even forgotten the dialect of Shainsa and speak it like any stranger.”

Cholayna looked at her silently for a long moment. Then she said, “Twelve years is long enough. At twelve, a child is formed - socially, sexually, the personality is fully created and cannot really be changed thereafter. You are far more a product of the Dry Towns than you are, for instance, a product of the Renunciate’s Guild House.”

Jaelle caught her breath, not knowing whether the flooding emotion was rage, dismay or simple disbelief. She found herself actually on her feet, every muscle tensed.

“How dare you?” she almost spat the words at Cholayna, “You have no right to say that!”

Cholayna blinked, but did not give ground before the flood of fury. “Jaelle, my dear, I wasn’t speaking of you personally, of course; I was simply restating one of the best established facts of human psychology; if you took it as a personal attack, I am sorry. Whether we like it or not, it’s a fact; the earliest impressions made on our minds are the lasting ones. Why should it trouble you so much to think that you might be basically a product of Dry-Town culture? Remember, I know very little about it, and there is very little about it in the HQ files; I must rely on you to tell me. What did I say to make you so angry?”

Jaelle drew a long breath and discovered that her jaw was aching behind her clenched teeth. At last she said “I - I did not mean to attack you personally, either. I - ” and she had to stop again and swallow and unclench her teeth; if she had been wearing a dagger, she realized, she would have drawn it, and perhaps, before she thought, used it, too.
Why did I explode like that
? The rage slowly drained from her, leaving bewilderment behind.

“You must be mistaken, in this case at least. If I were a product of the Dry Towns, I should be a - a chattel, as women are there; chained, some man’s property; a woman unchained is a scandal - she must bear the mark of some man’s ownership. I swore the Renunciate’s oath as soon as I was old enough, and I have - have forgotten - everything I have done since I left the Dry Towns has been a way of - “

She stopped, her voice trailing into silence, completing in her mind,
a way of proving to myself that I would never wear chains for any man… Kindra said once to me that most women, and most men too. believe themselves free and weight themselves with invisible chains
…

Cholayna brushed her hand absently over her silver-white hair.

“If everything you have done since you left the Dry Towns has been a way of proving that you were not one of them, then, whether you live by their precepts or no, they have formed everything you have done. If they had left no influence on you, you would have chosen your way without thinking whether it was their way or the reverse - wouldn’t you?”

Jaelle muttered “I suppose so.” She was still carefully breathing, forcing herself to relax, to unclench her fists.

Cholayna added, casually, “I know little of the Renunciates, either. You spoke of the Oath, and so did Magda, but I know nothing of it. Is it a secret, or can you tell me what a Renunciate, a Free Amazon, swears?”

Jaelle said tiredly, “The oath is not secret. I will gladly tell you.” She began “From this day henceforth I swear - “

“Wait - ” Cholayna lifted a hand. “May I turn on a recording device for the records?”

There was that word again
! But what was the point in arguing? It was, perhaps, the only way to make the Guild House comprehensible to an outsider. She said, “Certainly,” and waited.

“From this day I renounce the right to marry save as a freemate; no man shall bind me
di catenas
and I will dwell in no man’s house as a
barragana
,” she began, and steadily recited the Oath from beginning to end. How could Cholayna believe that she, if she were truly, as the woman said, a product formed by the Dry-Town culture, without hope of change in personality or sexuality or will, could have freely chosen the Oath? Ridiculous, on the face of it!

Cholayna listened quietly, nodding once or twice at some provision or other.

“This is, of course, not strange to me,” she said, “for in the Empire, and particularly on the Alpha planet where I grew up, it was taken for granted that women had these rights and responsibilities; although we also admit,” she said with a faint smile, “that the father of a child also has rights and responsibilities in determining care and upbringing. Some day, if you wish, I should like to discuss this with you at length. Also, I can see why it was that the Free Amazons - forgive me, the Renunciates - were the first Darkovan women to seek to learn from the Terrans. I have two things to ask of you. The first is that you should visit Magda in the Guild House and talk with her about choosing suitable women as candidates for Medic training - or whatever else seems suitable.”

“That will be my pleasure,” Jaelle said formally, but her mind ran counterpoint,
If she thinks I will help to persuade our women to act as Intelligence spies, she may think again
.

“Jaelle, what was your work among the - the Renunciates? What sort of work do they do?”

“Any honest work,” Jaelle said, “Among us there are bakers, cheese-makers, midwives - oh, yes, we train midwives especially in the Guild House in Arilinn - herb sellers, confectioners, mercenary soldiers - ” Abruptly she stopped, realizing where this line of questioning was leading.

“No, we are not all soldiers, Cholayna, nor mercenaries, nor sword-women: if I had to gain my porridge with the sword, I should have starved long ago. The outsiders think always of the more
visible
Free Amazons, the ones who hire out as soldiers and mercenaries. There was a time, long ao, when there was a Sisterhood of the Sword - in the Ages of Chaos - it was dissolved when the Guild, the Comhi-letzii, were formed. The Sisterhood were mercenaries and soldiers, then. You asked what I did? I am a travel-organizer; we provide escort for ladies traveling alone, at least that was how it started, because we could chaperone as well as guide and protect. Later, men also came to us, so that we could tell them how many pack-beasts to hire, what food to buy for them, and how much they would need for the journey - we also act as guides through the worst country and the mountain passes.” She smiled a little, forgetting her anger. “They say now that an Amazon guide will go where no man in the Hellers will dare to set his foot.”

“That would be invaluable to us,” Cholayna said quietly. “Mapping and Exploring can always use guides and personnel who can tell them how to outfit themselves for the weather and the terrain. Lives have been lost for lack of that knowledge. If the Renunciates will consent to work for us, we will be truly grateful.” She paused a moment. “I wish, too, that you would consent to talk with one of our agents about what you remember of the Dry Towns, however simple. I am not asking that you should spy upon your own people,” she added shrewdly, “only that you should help to prevent misunderstandings - to tell us what your people think
our
people should know about your world, forms of courtesy, ways to avoid giving offense by ignorance - “

“Yes, of course,” said Jaelle. She could not remember now why she felt so angry at the very thought of talking about the Dry Towns. She was an employee of the Empire, so employed with the consent of her Guild Mothers, and as such she should obey every lawful command of her employer.

“For instance, we have an agent - his name is Raymon Kadarin - who is willing to go into the Dry Towns and send back some information from there. I want you to meet him, to see if you think he could go into the Dry Towns without being immediately spotted as a spy. What we know of the Domains - she broke off as a light began to blink on her desk with repetitive insistence.

“I told those fellows not to disturb us,” Cholayna said, frowning slightly, “Just let me get rid of them, Jaelle, and we’ll go on. Yes?” she snapped, pressing the blinking stud.

“The Chief’s on a rampage,” said the disembodied voice. “He’s looking all over for that Darkovan - you know, Haldane’s girl? Finally Beth said she was in your office, and he made a scene. Can you send her down here double-quick and calm him down?”

Jaelle felt herself clench tight with wrath. She was not
Haldane’s girl
, she was not a
girl
at all, she was a woman and an Empire employee in her own right, and if they wanted her, they could have the courtesy to ask for her properly by name! She started to blurt out some of this, then saw Cholayna was frowning, and sensed that the woman was almost equally angry.

“Jaelle n’ha Melora is in my office, and I have not yet finished my conference,” said Cholayna coldly. “If Montray wishes to speak with her, he may request her to come to his office when I have finished.”

Jaelle had met the Legate at the Council and had not liked him. She knew that Magda, too, had small respect for the man who had been her immediate superior; that he knew far less of Darkover than Magda herself, or any of half a dozen agents who worked under him. Peter, too, had said something like that;
Granted, the man’s a career diplomat, not an Intelligence Agent, but he ought to know something about the world where he’s stationed
!

Cholayna pushed the button and it went dark. “That will hold him for a little while, but I can’t guarantee that he won’t send for you right away. I’ve done my best.” She smiled at Jaelle, in a sudden, conspiratorial way, and Jaelle realized she liked this woman, she had one friend here, at least.

“Now, how would you like to record what you know of the Dry Towns?” Cholayna asked. “You can put it into a tape for Records, or you can talk directly to the Agent…”